The fundamental flaw of the scientific method

[WHR]

The scientific method is awesome!! I mean it really rocks. It has advanced human knowledge in the past 200 years more than the previous 20,000. However, it has a fundamental flaw that prevents it from overcoming it's own limitations.

The fundamental flaw is that it is a doctrine that says truth can only be obtained by following its rigid rules. That is absoluty 100% certainly false. A discovery that advances human knowledge and understanding of nature can be made without the tool of science.

 

Thought experiment: take a human child at an early stage of development. Provide for his needs, give him a basic understanding of nature...fire burns, cold freezes, etc. teach him basic mathematics and the common sense knowledge that any human would require to sustain himself.

 

If this child was average witted, he may not ever make a discovery on his own. He may not figure out that, for instance, fire requires a fuel and that the fuel must be replenished to sustain the fire. He may depend on other sources of heat to survive, or the source may have to be provided for him without advanced explanation. However, if the wit of this child was of extraordinary nature, with a gift for analytical reasoning, he might indeed discover the relationship with fuel that fire has. He might require loose applications of the scientific method to conclude experiment with various fuel sources and draw some factual conclusions based on his experimentation. But he would not be aware of a rule book. With a certain amount of experience, he might rightly conclude that "wood burns", but he might also INTUITIVELY know that dry leaves will burn too without testing it out. This conclusion might be based on the obvious connection that wood has with leaves. In other words, he may not find it remarkable that the leaves burn when he actually burns some. He already knew that they would burn based on intuition so it wasn't a surprise. He didn't use scientific method, he used simple reason. Yet his understanding of nature was indeed advanced purely on the power of thought without following a guide book. In fact, it is remarkable that some of the most profound advancements in human knowledge predated the scientific method by thousands of years. I know the argument will be that the scientific method is rooted in simple common sense processes that are innate to human reasoning. That we did a simple kind of science before we assigned it a name and definition. But we also had much less reference knowledge to bridge the gaps. These fundamental discoveries were almost pulled from nothing. I would conclude that the guy who figured out how to use a lever was every bit the genius that Albert Einstein was.

 

I love science. I love the scientific method. I love the knowledge that science has given me. But I'm deeply disturbed by the thought that some people can't reason without a doctrine to govern them. It has become obvious to me that science is reaching an impasse where it will no longer be adequate to further human understanding. The leap from a type 0 civilization to a type 1 civilization will require a renaissance in human thinking. It will require the synthesis of science with other disciplines of intellect like philosophy, spirituality, etc. but more importantly, it will require an acceptance that profound understanding of the truth can come from pure thought, intuition, basic cleverness. We already gladly site the briliant thought experiments of men like Maxwell and Einstein. But these are men we learned about in school, men whose genius we already accept because we are told that they were right by our teachers. We do not welcome the thought experiment of the guy who lives down the street. He, after all, is a crack pot, because everyone knows that nobody but people with famous names in science textbooks can do valid thought experiments.

 

Point being....I agree that when someone has an idea that they think might uncover a truth or make accepted concepts more simpke or elegant that some kind of evidence should be used to back the idea up. However, I do not think it a wise practice of science to dismiss the idea. This is iMHO the same as telling the guy who figured out that leaves burn that he is wrong and that you won't believe him until he burns some leaves right in front of you. A less lazy minded person might draw the same conclusion about the relationship between wood and leaves and say, "of course! Why didn't I think of that?" if more of us would take the

Time to actually listen to the thoughts of others, we may actually expand human knowledge tenfold.

[JMJones0424]

I don't think I understand your point. Are you saying that requiring hypotheses to be tested is a limitation of the scientific method? If an explanation cannot or is not tested, how are we to evaluate its usefulness?

[Ringer]

How would you know the leaves really did burn unless it could be shown they would burn again?

[WHR]

No, I think my overall statement can be summed up by saying that knowledge advancement does not require a play book. It is that simple. Our play book is a fabrication of our species. The truth is the truth, knowledge is knowledge. Let's step outside even our own species and find examples where evolution provided understanding of nature and ingrained it as instinct. Birds migrate based on an instinctual ability to orient themselves to the magnetic poles. They also mastered flight through evolution. Nature itself provided the means for a less evolved life form to take advantage of basic physics and fly, whereas many men died falling from heights trying to replicate what birds instinctively know. Of course, I'm not arguing that birds understand flight, magnetism, or aerodynamics. They just fly. But the terms "understand, flight, magnetism and aerodynamics" are all constructs of language, and language is our special gift from nature like flight is for birds. Our special ability is to share our knowledge through conceptualization. But the argument remains, there are other ways to exploit truth, other paths. Evolution itself provides a simple and limited means. Evolution is not intelligent and does not follow a method, it may be a process but it's not a method.

So, I already know that someone who can't think outside of rigid boundaries is already reading an argument that evolution has a relationship with how the human mind discovers things about nature and is thinking "crackpot". Someone with a more liberated mind can see the connection. This is just one example though. We do not know that the complexities of understanding that lie ahead for us as new paradigms replace old ones (and they will) and as we exhaust the limits of understanding. Many futurists believe that we are quickly approaching the technological/biological singularity where brains, bodies, and computers will merge. The Internet itself is a new way of networking knowledge and exchanging ideas across great distances at the speed of light. Yet we do not use this to its fullest potential. When we do, it can lead to great things. NASA used a foam material that was light but super strong to catch the debris from a comet several years ago. There is an Internet based project that encourages amateurs to examine the photos to pick out possible cosmic material and identify it. Many astronomy projects use the Internet connected to telescopes and databases and encourage novices at home to help search the heavens for various phenomenon. Many eyes, many minds, many hours of labor. Yet, forums all across the Internet where topics of science are discussed are met with hostility. We haven't yet learned to use the internet's vast abilities to link our minds and advance our knowledge by orders of magnitude. We remain stuck in the 19th century model where only members of a royal society can be scientists or participate on science.

I really enjoy the work of Michio Kaku. He has a knack for making science something for everyone. He isn't afraid to speculate. He can talk about two competing concepts in cosmology or physics in the same breath and not ridicule one at the expense of the other. He can talk about dark matter and energy and an accelerating universe, then give honest credence to the possibility that we don't understand something and talk about the ramifications of a "big crunch" in the same lecture. That's an old paradigm that may one day be revisited as our understanding of nature grows.

But he is in a position where his intellect is already acknowledged. He doesn't have to worry about staying in good graces with colleagues. He works within the mainstream, but somehow I think if some bright young amateur came to him with an untested idea, he'd facilitate the idea rather than argue with them on the Internet for hours and call them a crackpot. I think he knows intuitively that in 30 to 50 years all of our brains will be networked together and shared ideas with liberal methodolgies will become the rule of science as science itself evolves to keep up with the new paradigm of life itself. That pretty much sums it up.

 

How would you know the leaves really did burn unless it could be shown they would burn again?

Ummmm .....common sense?????

Are you so far removed from everyday life experience that you couldnt make that obvious connection without having to prove it?? Are there no obvious aspects of nature that we just sorta figure out with the gift of our intelligence?

 

One human being cannot experience every experience that existence may offer, but somehow we know certain things even without ever having experienced them. For example, the color red is associated with danger, poisons, heat, things that might harm you. Animals with red fur, markings, eyes, etc are usually considered dangerous. If I were bitten by a snake with red stripes, I would probably deduce that insects or arachnids with red markings or flesh might be dangerous too. I might fear a bird with red feathers and assume it was aggressive. I may sometimes be wrong about it because red might also be a mating color for some species, however, my common sense and ability to make associations and connections without having to TEST my fears would probably help preserve my health and maybe life.

What I'm saying is that we have built into us the faculty to discover and comprehend so many things, yet we have unintentionally chained our collective minds with the rule book of the scientific method. We were given two hemispheres to our brains for a reason, but science forces is to abandon one in favor of the other.

 

Let me put this another way.

 

The scientific method as a doctrine has one purpose and one purpose only. It's the same as the rule book for chess. It forces kids playing in the sandlot to get along and play fair. It's no different than the rules that tell me I have to be at my work at a certain time, or that I can't walk up to be superior and punch him in the face. Our species must have order. This order that the scientific method brings is not because it is the one and only holy road to truth. It's because people can't work together without a rule book.

 

Now go back to chess. Does the fact that chess requires rules also mean that two people can't entertain themselves and challenge each other's minds in a game completely impromptu without a rule book? Children do it all the time. They have quite a knack for inventing all sorts of games that entertain, even making up rules as they go along.

 

But someone working a problem through on his own. He is the most liberated of all. There are no rules that chain him and force him to play a rigid game. His mind is free to explore and discover. Back to children. I am the father of a 3 year old. He is yet to learn the word science, yet he is exploring the world and discovering nature in thousands of ways completely on his own. I can already see a genius for music and mechanical aptitude. He builds things, balances things, stacks, rolls, totes, creates. Is imagination is a beautiful thing. If that pure, innocent child's imagination could be harnessed by an adult with superior intellect, the combination of intelligence and imagination would be absolute perfection. But we forget how to harness that creative side after we've been conditioned by rule books all our lives.

[JMJones0424]

It sounds to me that your quarrel isn't with the scientific method. Instead it is with the scientific establishment. The scientific method is simply a way of objectively investigating and describing the world around us.

How would you know the leaves really did burn unless it could be shown they would burn again?

 

Ummmm .....common sense?????

Are you so far removed from everyday life experience that you couldnt make that obvious connection without having to prove it?? Are there no obvious aspects of nature that we just sorta figure out with the gift of our intelligence?

 

 

It's easy to claim common sense in such a ridiculously easy example. How do you use the "common sense" method of explaining phenomenon that aren't intuitive? If your common sense leads you to one answer, for example that time is absolute, and experimental evidence leads to another answer which refutes your common sense, is this not a triumph of the scientific method rather than an example of a limitation? By requiring testable hypotheses rather than accepting as fact one's common sense, we gain objectively verifiable knowledge of our surroundings, in spite of our cognitive biases.

[WHR]

Who are you and why should I value your thoughts or your objections to mine? I don't really care what anything "sounds like to you". I hope you aren't actually a research scientist, because I would question your ability to analyze observation objectively.

[JMJones0424]

Who are you and why should I value your thoughts or your objections to mine? I don't really care what anything "sounds like to you". I hope you aren't actually a research scientist, because I would question your ability to analyze observation objectively.

 

Who I am should be irrelevant. That's the beauty of objective analysis. I've asked a specific question regarding your complaint about the scientific method. You seem to me to be claiming that common sense is an appropriate measure of the validity of an explanation. I've given an example that seems to refute your claim. Is my analysis incorrect?

[WHR]

Your comment assumes that I've claimed that the scientific method never has triumphs. But my point is that it isn't the scientific method that actually triumphs, it is the human mind. The scientific method is a doctrine that tethers the human mind rather than freeing it. Like a dog on a chain. This doesn't prevent the dog from sniffing around the area within his confines and making the best of his barriers. We have exhausted the value of the scientific method. Or at least come close to it. Like the dog, we've explored the radius that the shackles confine us to and become quite familiar with our surroundings. I imagine if a dog could count, he'd know how many blades of grass were within his reach. That's pretty much what we've done this far with science. Counted all the blades of grass within our reach. But we refuse to unshackle the chains and move out to the next level of truth and knowledge.

 

And yes, who you are is certainly relevant to me. I don't expect you to reveal your identities any more than I'm going to disclose personal information. That's the unfortunate thing about using the Internet to discuss higher order concepts. The guy on the other end literally can be anyone.

[JMJones0424]

This is precisely why your complaint fails. I do not accept your chained dog analogy as you've yet to provide an example in which the analogy is appropriate. I do not accept that who I am, nor who you are, nor any quality of the claimant is relevant to the value of the claim being made. The scientific method, specifically the idea that claims should be verifiable, is not a hinderance to understanding. Instead, it is the means by which we have been able to rid ourselves of the notion that common sense is valuable, that one's preconceived notions are a valuable tool in judging one's surroundings. If you must rely on common sense as the supporting factor for your claim, and your common sense differs from experimental data, of what value is your common sense? If supporting data confirms your common sense, then why not rely on that objective data to support your claim?

[WHR]

I do not accept your failing grade. You are not my teacher and I am not your pupil.

[JMJones0424]

I claimed nothing of the sort. I did ask, and you have yet to answer, how is common sense a valuable explanation for phenomena that are not intuitive? Or to put it another way - if the scientific method is inappropriate for evaluating some aspects of reality, 1)what are those aspects, and 2) what method is more appropriate, and why?

[WHR]

I will answer....when I have more time. But before I do, why do you think I should make any effort to convince you? Particularly so if I don't care if you are convinced or not?

[JMJones0424]

Because this is a forum for discussion and you felt that your idea was worthy of discussion. I, too, feel your idea is worthy of discussion, and I am participating in that discussion.

[swansont]

Ummmm .....common sense?????

Are you so far removed from everyday life experience that you couldnt make that obvious connection without having to prove it?? Are there no obvious aspects of nature that we just sorta figure out with the gift of our intelligence?

I think you overestimate common sense. We make mental models of what we observe in order to make sense of it all, but humans see patterns even when they aren't there, so common sense often fails. You have to test to see if the model you create is valid, which is exactly what the scientific method does.

[WHR]

Because this is a forum for discussion and you felt that your idea was worthy of discussion. I, too, feel your idea is worthy of discussion, and I am participating in that discussion.

Good!!! Thank you. Then before I proceed, I must respectfully ask that terms like "fail" not be used in this discussion, because they automatically imply that the reasoning skills, education, knowledge, or authority of the person assessing the" failure" are superior to the other participant. That is not a discussion, it is a classroom lecture.

[JMJones0424]

As this is your thread, I will certainly grant your request.

[WHR]

Ok I have a moment.

Answering your question is painful for me, because it's not unlike discussing the overall failings of the Roman empire and dissecting one particular facet, dismissing it as imconclusive, and then concluding that the Roman empire did not actually collapse and is still alive and well today. I do not assert that common sense is the only beacon of truth or path to knowledge. Nor do I dismiss that the scientific method has proven useful in obtaining knowledge. I even acknowledge that there is a certain aspect of how we deduce and draw conclusions naturally that adheres to the core principles of the scientific method.

But I assert that there is a limitation to this, and we are nearing the end game as far as its usefulness as an absolute tool of understanding goes. I think that the fruits of the scientific method, technologies that allow us to share our ideas, and thus network our minds, such as the internet and this iPhone I'm using, require us to revamp our doctrines. A single mind working a problem certainly has limitations. A small team of minds working a problem as individuals with assigned tasks has differing limitations but limitations nonetheless. But all of the computing and reasoning power of the collective human mind networked together is a force to be reckoned with, of we could devise new strategies that compell us to utilize this technology to its fullest potential.

 

When a Google search is done on physics or science forums for instance, a handful of websites pop up. I have for years read threads and seen a pattern. I've participated in one forum in particular that deals with an applied science that is a hobby and passion of mine. When interesting ideas are brought up, seldom do I see the idea discussed and explored unless the person with the idea can at least site 2 or 3 published papers that relate to the idea and at least indirectly support it. This mindset undermines a fundamental truth, that a new understanding can be uncovered without building upon previous work. Ideas are not even given a second thought. An Internet forum such as this is not an

Official organization with a license to ridicule. I'll be the first person to grant that some nutcases will always come along and present topics that sound drug induced. Conspiracy theorists abound, flat earthers still pervade, radical religious and superstitious people have broadband connections too.

However, a forum such as this could be an amazingly useful tool if the chains of doctrine were modified to allow the free exchange of ideas without immediate adversarial attitudes.

My motivation for starting this topic was a "pinned thread"...pinned threads usually are pinned because they carry some weight of authority. It was called "how

To spot pseudoscience" or some such nonsense. The very title being very condescending. One of the bullet points was that a claim is pseudoscience if it is being made by an individual who says he's worked out a theory. The statement was made that real science can't be carried out by an individual anymore. Implying the sole domain of science is research institutions, universities, etc being performed by teams of people. This is the worker bee model. The task of survival for a bee is too difficult as a lone creature, so they survive as a collective. However, other species easily demonstrate that at least a pair of differing sexes can easily survive, and some asexual creatures have thrived as lone individuals. To further this concept, I won't deny that the arduous task of bringing a new idea about nature to light requires a lot of work, a lot of discussion, repeatable data, etc. all adhering to scientific doctrines. However, the spark for the idea, the foundation for an idea, the revalation of an idea can be born from an individual mind...and his or her mind CAN resolve the basic tenants of the concept long before any predictions have been tested and the TRUTH of that idea is there without respect for the proofing of it. Something doesn't have to be proven to be true...proof is only confirmation, an excercise. The truth is the truth and would be there even without human beings around to analyze it. So, this cited definition of pseudoscience offends me, and strikes at the heart of the goal of science, which is to uncover truths about nature. It places an unnecessary shackle on the human mind, it shuts the door on creative thought. This thinking will prove to be the speed barrier that we finally hit in a few years when the pinnacle of understanding (theoretical physics) can no longer resolve anything. I already see an abundance of confusion, disagreement, and hoop jumping in cosmology with the whole dark energy/dark matter/accelerating universe concept. Nobody will acknowledge "hey, this crap just can't rationally be explained!"...everyone is sitting around on there hands with drool running from their mouths trying to make sense out of nonsense, eating the "fudge" so to speak, and holding their breath until someone comes along and sets the course back on a more comfortable path. That's where cosmology is today.

And here I am, on this forum...my sole purpose is to propose that we start the process of cutting the tethers that restrict our collective minds. That we utilize this tool of networking to its fullest potential, that we discuss ideas rather than debate them from the start. That we acknowledge the power of one mind to have a brilliant idea and the power of 8 billion minds to master it.

[StringJunky]

I think what you really want is people to publicly brainstorm together and build on each others ideas but this is not really the function of this forum or the scientific method in general.

 

One presents an idea here for it to be intellectually shot at to see if it withstands the rigour of external analysis. It is not the present model of scientific research to have other people do your work for you and you have all the accolades.

[Greg H.]

My motivation for starting this topic was a "pinned thread"...pinned threads usually are pinned because they carry some weight of authority. It was called "How To spot pseudoscience" or some such nonsense. The very title being very condescending.

There's nothing condescending at all about the title. Knowing how to spot pseudo-science from actual science is a skill that is, sadly, often lacking from most people's educational background. It's like saying the instruction manual for your stereo is condescending for making the assumption that you may not know how to hook up your speakers.

 

One of the bullet points was that a claim is pseudoscience if it is being made by an individual who says he's worked out a theory. The statement was made that real science can't be carried out by an individual anymore. Implying the sole domain of science is research institutions, universities, etc being performed by teams of people.

 

I am assuming this is the bullet point to which you are referring:

6. The discoverer has worked in isolation. The image of a lone genius who struggles in secrecy in an attic laboratory and ends up making a revolutionary breakthrough is a staple of Hollywood's science-fiction films, but it is hard to find examples in real life. Scientific breakthroughs nowadays are almost always syntheses of the work of many scientists.

 

Please note the phrase "almost always". This does not preclude the idea that one person can have a break through of staggering and monumental importance (Relativity comes to mind), but that it is not the norm anymore. Most advanced research requires equipment and techniques well beyond the means of the lone scientist, which is why they tend to work for companies or research facilities that have the funding, and the expertise, to acquire and correctly use such equipment. Modern scientific equipment is both expensive and complex, and can require teams of dedicated experts just to set up and operate correctly. It can also require computer programmers to develop analysis algorithms to interpret the data. These folks do not work for free.

 

However, this is not a failure of the scientific method - in fact, it insures that advanced science can continue to be done, and that we continue to advance. No one is saying that a revolutionary idea cannot come from a single mind, but the validation of that idea rarely is.

[WHR]

I recently read an extremely interesting idea that was proposed by some anonymous individual as a topic of discussion, not here but elsewhere. The idea related to the dark energy, accelerating universe problem.

This individual reckoned that we have accepted the idea that gravity, as modeled by Einstein, is a curve in spacetime created by the mass of a body. The greater the mass, the deeper the curve and the further the radius of its effects. We've all seen the Homer Simpson cartoon and others like

It that elegantly animates this concept. This individual proposed something that he didn't give a name to but I will. I'm going to call it antigravity (that's not a new word but the idea is brilliant and might actually be worthy of that name). He pondered if the opposite of an intdention caused by massive bodies might exist at the center of the universe, at the location in spacetime where the big bang supposedly happened. We will call his idea the "big bump". Now he made the mistake (i think) of sort of centralizing this "bump" and confining it in size. But the thrust of his concept was that all the matter in the universe is repelled by it, sort of how a ball rolls down hill. The opposite idea of mass creating an intdention in spacetime.

I would revise his idea to say that the entire universe,

If it indeed has physical boundaries, is one big gradually curved hemisphere. The center of the hemisphere is where the curvature is slightest, and is also the point in the history of spacetime where the universe was youngest, so the acceleration was not sharp...however, as the universe has expanded it has reached a place in the curvature where total the intdention of gravity by all the mass of the universe does not equal the pitch of the curvature, so that acceleration is surpassing the combined force of gravity and mass. This is a very elegant idea!!!!! And the thing that strikes me about it is that I read it on the internet, saw a little merit in it, added a little more reason and thought to it by doubling the brain power, and made it a little better, more fitting with what I understand about the observable cosmos.

 

Imagine if 100 bright minds took this problem and

Worked with it. Perhaps someone would find a convincing problem with it that blows it all up. But what if???

 

That's the issue I take with the chains that we place upon ourselves. Does anyone have the courage to take this and give it some dialogue? If some day this idea found an audience, I would not hesitate to go back to the forum where I read it, contact the administrators, find the IP of the original poster, and make every effort to contact him and offer to drive him to the university of his choosing to take credit for its birth.

But of course, the idea may be utter nonsense too. But it is extremely elegant and facilities a lot of thought!

 

Questions that might arise would be, what is the cause of this curvature? Well, I've seen many a scientist speculate that the universe might be in fact curved and in a sense infinite, eventually meeting itself at every point along the way. These speculations are all just ideas that help us to visualize something extremely hard to comprehend, but they stir our minds to think.

 

Perhaps there is an antimass in an opposite parallel universe that pushes against our massive universe at its center. Perhaps this opposite universe is in fact undergoing a big crunch with all of its anti mass falling in upon itself. Perhaps all of our massive bodies create little bumps in the anti mass universe that work against the effects of anti mass. Little speed bumps that keep the antimatter in check. It's at the very lesast an interesting thing to ponder. And one of the reasons I assert that forums such as this should be utilized in a better way.

 

Oh btw, this discussion didn't get far, it only had about 5 replies and died. I suspect this is because his original idea of a centralized bump was not satisfactory...but the participants in the discussion were too lazy minded to pursue the core concept and expand it to something worthwhile. Have I even accomplished this by my added reasoning? Perhaps not! But perhaps I have. Without question, if I had seen a similar concept outlined in a book by Stephen Hawking, and his name was associated with it, I would have not been surprised.

 

I think what you really want is people to publicly brainstorm together and build on each others ideas but this is not really the function of this forum or the scientific method in general.

 

One presents an idea here for it to be intellectually shot at to see if it withstands the rigour of external analysis. It is not the present model of scientific research to have other people do your work for you and you have all the accolades.

You see, this is the ultimate problem I take issue with. The search for truth shouldn't carry with it ego. Accolades are, in fact, the carrot stick that drives science in its modern form...be it in the form of peer recognition, the Nobel prize, or something as simple as a comfortable position working at a university. This is science in a capitalist culture. I'm not anti capitalist, but just as I think church and state should be seperate, I think the quest for knowledge shouldn't be driven by economics. It should stand on its own merits. Sadly, this is not the reality of today. Similar to art. The great painters, poets, musicians of history very often were obscure and unknown and were only motivated by their love for their art.

 

I have noticed that my iPhone app puts new posts that I make when I want to expand on a subject at the bottom of a previous post as if it were one long post. I don't care for that feature but I will make do.

 

Ok I want to address the conflicting points that have been posed by the latest replies to this thread.

 

On one hand, the point of science needing resources, this requiring grants, large computers and databases, many people etc. I will reply that this is almost certainly true for a new idea to be tested. Again, pointing out that the truth is only being confirmed, not that the truth requires the confirmation...yet, it remains a fact that resources are an advantage to furthering science.

 

This actually conflicts with the point made by the other fellow (I apologize for not specifically quoting)...that forums such as this are not appropriate places because essentially "we aren't here to do the legwork for you".

 

First, I highly doubt that more than 25% of the active posters on forums like this are in any more of a position to do the legwork than I am. And of that 25%, most are too busy with other mundane things at their institutions, making a capitalist living, to pursue a briliant idea. Most of us are happy with our 2 car garage and white picket fence. The other 75% of people that lurk these places are Worlds of Warcraft junkies between the age of 13 and 35 without families or children, potentially still living with mom and dad...which of course is not a shame for the 13-20 year olds...painting a stereotype, yes. Sorry, but it's true. I know too many people like that.

 

I myself am 3 months from 40, a single father with full responsibility of raising a child, a career in applied chemistry, a good career that pays the bills without a PhD, a mortgage, and no inclination or position to jeapordize my family's security to pursue dreams. Thus, I will never find myself in a position to pursue even the grandest idea in a way that gets me the resources to do it.

 

I'm not a Worlds of Warcraft junkie, but I very much am a person who has his hands tied by my station in life. So I belong in that 75% category. Guilt by association. Btw I mean no offense to online gamers or people who haven't found their own way in their life yet. It isn't easy. The stereotype is only meant to point out how lofty a place it is to be a researcher at a prestigious university, and how few of us can ever attain that.

 

Needless to say, as tied up as life may be for most of us, if we have a natural instinct for curiosity, a love for learning, and a passion for deep thinking, brilliant ideas can spring from the well of our minds. But we find ourselves in a conundrum. Do we write a letter to Stephen Hawking or maybe the Discovery Channel? Do we call CERN and ask for the smartest guy in the room? Bwahahahaha. Nah. We float our idea on an Internet message board.

 

And this is where the conflict arises with the guy who thinks the Internet can't be a place to brainstorm and nobody wants to do your legwork. Well probably most people on here just don't want to break away from their gaming time long enough to go apply for a job, assuming they have a degree. (ok I'll quit being an a$$ now)...seriously. I personally wouldn't float an idea on the Internet if that was my expectation. I think the fun of floating things on the Internet is the interaction with other people who may be at least as smart as you and see what they think. The problem is that there is a cloak that must be worn on science related sites. You must either 1)be a real, employed research scientist or 2) speak the language of said scientist even if you are a high school dropout but keep your mouth shut about your background or 3) masquerade as a scientist...the reason this cloak must be worn is because to do otherwise is to automatically be labeled in the 4th category (kook, quack, pseudoscientist, bafoon, insert your pet name for people who think from a different worldview here).

 

So, the attitude from the start is to ridicule. It is to declare an Internet forum is not an appropriate place to discuss interesting new science ideas (then WTH use are they? To sit around and pontificate?) to dismiss and lump every thought from the most bizarre conspiracy theory to a rough around the edges but intriguing idea in the same category and toss them aside...simply because people are too lazy minded, arrogant, or probably unqualified to bounce it around?

 

I find this idea repulsive. I again assert that the Internet is being underutilized, and the ultimate end game will come when new knowledge can't even be achieved with the most prestigious resources available, and the only way to do it is to tap the infinite resource of the collective human mind.

Edited August 3, 2012 by WHR

[Phi for All]

Oh, dude. Discussion is like conversation. A wall o' text is like someone who won't let you get a word in edgewise, and it makes it really difficult to get to the meat of the topic. And when you're basically complaining with a wall o' text, you're making a lot of eyes glaze over. No offense, just sayin'.

 

Don't conflate refutation with ridicule. Especially here, we make a distinction between attacking the person and attacking the idea the person has. We don't allow the former, and the latter is just part of the process. I seriously don't see the point of everyone else walking on eggshells to protect one person's ego. I think it's much more efficient for the one person, the person with the idea, to grow a thicker skin, and realize that it's not personal when someone criticizes their idea.

[ecoli]

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Moderator Note

WHR - you are now jeopardizing your own thread by spending more text complaining about how you think you're being treated than the original topic. You're going to need thicker skin if you want to contribute new ideas to science and philosophy. So far, no replies have been personal attacks. Off topic posts can be deleted and result in infractions.

[WHR]

Replying to the moderator: the mobile version of this app, as I pointed out, combines everything together when several points are made in a row, causing the appearance of a long text when it was in fact several. I suggest an improvement to chop them up instead of combine them.

 

Secondly, I was replying to the points. No I am not complaining. To complain would be to denote unhappiness. This conversation does not change my mood or affect me that way. But sadly, that mentality disappoints me. If someone points out an inadequacy he is a complainer? Then Patrick Henry was simply a complainer when he cried give me liberty or give me death. But OK, in the future I won't respond to someone when they ask a question or make a comment that may move the thread off topic.

 

Oh, dude. Discussion is like conversation. A wall o' text is like someone who won't let you get a word in edgewise, and it makes it really difficult to get to the meat of the topic. And when you're basically complaining with a wall o' text, you're making a lot of eyes glaze over. No offense, just sayin'.

 

Don't conflate refutation with ridicule. Especially here, we make a distinction between attacking the person and attacking the idea the person has. We don't allow the former, and the latter is just part of the process. I seriously don't see the point of everyone else walking on eggshells to protect one person's ego. I think it's much more efficient for the one person, the person with the idea, to grow a thicker skin, and realize that it's not personal when someone criticizes their idea.

Actually I'm not offended. I can't modify the software to break up the two posts, so it is not my fault and nothing to be offended by. I will however point out that published scientific articles can be quite long and mind numbingly technical and sometimes boring. If someone can't hold their attention on a 2 or 3 thousand word Internet posting, I find it difficult to comprehend that they have any place discussing big ideas. No offense really, but that's how I call it. And btw, I've only seen ideas presented and then responded to in the way that this thread was immediately responded to, i.e. "FAIL"...I've never heard of an idea posted on the Internet making it further than this (unless you can cite a progression in a field of science that uses an Internet discussion in its appendix, I'm unaware of any). This tells me that 99.9% of discussions are met with the same sort of immediate reply and only proceed when the poster has the desire to "complain" about it

[CharonY]

I personally wouldn't float an idea on the Internet if that was my expectation. I think the fun of floating things on the Internet is the interaction with other people who may be at least as smart as you and see what they think. The problem is that there is a cloak that must be worn on science related sites. You must either 1)be a real, employed research scientist or 2) speak the language of said scientist even if you are a high school dropout but keep your mouth shut about your background or 3) masquerade as a scientist...the reason this cloak must be worn is because to do otherwise is to automatically be labeled in the 4th category (kook, quack, pseudoscientist, bafoon, insert your pet name for people who think from a different worldview here).

 

There several issues with that. First of all, it is not a matter of degree per se, but in order to develop ideas above a certain level some kind of knowledge of the subject is kind of necessary. If I wanted to build a wardrobe I would have at least to invest time to figure out how to do it, what material to use etc. Even then it would be a lousy job. It would be quite childish of me to just nails some stuff randomly together and expect to get praise (especially from carpenters who actually spent time to learn the craft).

Science has progressed to a point where in most areas random ideas without in-depth study of the current knowledge, is unlikely to yield novel insights. Not impossible, but highly improbable.

To develop expertise takes time and the willingness to learn. Pretending, especially in science, will not do anyone anything good.

I have no issues (and actually enjoy) talking to non-scientists about science. And I do not think anyone should shut their mouth if they do not understand something (quite the opposite, actually). But if someones idea is not planted on a very solid foundation, one has to expect to learn, why it is wrong (or otherwise lacking). And then, one should learn from there.

[ecoli]

Replying to the moderator: the mobile version of this app, as I pointed out, combines everything together when several points are made in a row, causing the appearance of a long text when it was in fact several. I suggest an improvement to chop them up instead of combine them.

 

This is done to prevent people from inflating their post count, though your point is well taken.

 

Secondly, I was replying to the points. No I am not complaining. To complain would be to denote unhappiness. This conversation does not change my mood or affect me that way. But sadly, that mentality disappoints me. If someone points out an inadequacy he is a complainer? Then Patrick Henry was simply a complainer when he cried give me liberty or give me death. But OK, in the future I won't respond to someone when they ask a question or make a comment that may move the thread off topic.

 

Half the post I responded to was you griping about how people respond to your ideas on internet forums. If you don't like it, why don't you try a different platform to express your ideas. Because the issue here is that when somebody asks a question or makes a comment, the right thing to do is to respond to that comment especially if its a request for evidence or clarification (as the responses in this thread have been). Your responses have been largely to complain about perceived ridicule. Comparing yourself to Patrick Henry is just ridiculous.